There is a powerful force within us, an un-illuminated part of the mind - separate from the conscious mind that is constantly at work molding our thought, feelings, and actions.

The paranoid is never entirely mistaken.

Another technique for fending off suffering is the employment of the displacements of libido which our mental apparatus permits of and through which its function gains so much in flexibility. The task here is that of shifting the instinctual aims in such a way that they cannot come up against frustration from the external world.

It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct.

The Irish are the one race for which psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever... because they already live in a dream world.

When a love-relationship is at its height there is no room left for any interest in the environment; a pair of lovers are sufficient to themselves

The division of the psychical into what is conscious and what is unconscious is the fundamental premise of psycho-analysis; and it alone makes it possible for psycho-analysis to understand the pathological processes in mental life, which are as common as they are important, and to find a place for them in the framework of science.